Turn up the heat with induction cooktops

WINCHESTER -- Barbara Lynch sets the cast-iron grill pan on the glass cooking surface, turns it on high, and within minutes little curls of smoke snake skyward.

When a thick piece of steak lands on the pan, the searing is so intense that the kitchen starts to fill with smoke before Lynch has a chance to flip on the ventilation hood.

There's smoke, but no fire -- and very little ambient heat. That's because when Lynch and her husband, Charlie Petri, built their dream kitchen, they went with an induction cooktop, which uses a magnetic field to react with the metal in a pan, turning it into its own source of heat.

''It's just a neater way, a cleaner, tighter way of cooking," Lynch says. It's also almost twice as energy efficient as gas or standard electric cooking, according to Sue Bailey, lead product manager for major appliances for high-end appliance maker Viking.

Of course, Lynch is no everyday home cook. The owner of No. 9 Park, The Butcher Shop, and B&G Oysters is one of the most celebrated chefs in Boston, and successful enough that she can install commercial equipment in her house here. Besides the induction cooktop, she has a combination (''combi") oven that uses steam, convection, or the two together, and a pasta cooker installed in one counter.

Of the three, induction cooking appears poised to make the most immediate splash at the residential level, with consumer models available from such companies as Diva, Wolf, Viking, and Kenmore.

Lynch first used an induction stovetop at functions that depended on the portability of separate burners. She became so enamored that when she opened The Butcher Shop in the South End, she went all-induction.

At home, when she sears the thick steak on the Le Creuset enameled cast-iron pan, she points out that another benefit to induction cooking is that it doesn't create any of those unsightly black marks on her butter-colored cookware. However, it doesn't work with just any pans, only those with ferrous metals such as steel and iron that react with magnets. People attached to their copper or aluminum cookware are out of luck.

Steve Sheinkopf, director of sales at Yale Appliance and Lighting in Dorchester, says he's seeing interest in induction cooking among ''early adopters."

''Either they're looking for pro-gas cooking but can't have it" because there's no gas line installed, ''or they're looking for the latest and greatest," he said.

Until Viking entered the market this year, though, residential induction cooktops were far from many consumers' reach, at about $4,000 for models by Diva or Wolf. Yale sells a Viking combination cooktop, with two regular electric burners and two induction ones, for $2,200, but that's not including the cost of a separate wall oven.

Sears has gone even cheaper, with a Kenmore induction unit that costs $1,500, an attractive option for those who don't mind that it offers significantly less power than Viking and the other high-end brands.

Nonetheless, Sheinkopf is a fan of the genre: In Yale's test kitchens, the induction cooktops boil water in a fraction of the time of gas or electric, are much more responsive, and for families with children or the elderly, they're ''a lot safer."

''When you're looking at a cooktop, there's not a lot more that it needs to do than that," he says.

Joe Yonan can be reached at yonan@globe.com.Watch chef Barbara Lynch demonstrate how her induction stove works at boston.com/proshop.